Taskforce established to ‘Keep Freight Flowing’ into the UK

Maritime Business Continuity Taskforce established to ‘Keep Freight Flowing’ into the UK

95% of goods – including medicine, food and fuel – come to the UK through ports

Yet companies cannot access funding or safety equipment to ensure a flow of goods

Maritime UK is today establishing the Maritime Business Continuity
Taskforce in response to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. The Maritime
Sector facilitates 95% of trade into the UK, including medicine, food and fuel.
A fully functioning Maritime Sector is therefore essential to ‘Keep Freight
Flowing’ into the UK at this unprecedented time in history.

Many members of Maritime UK are struggling to access Government funding
that has been made available to businesses been impacted by the virus.
Worryingly, companies are also finding it near-impossible to access PPE
equipment – masks, gloves and hand sanitizer – that are essential to ensure the
continuous flow of goods into the UK. Without funding and safety equipment, it
will become increasingly challenging to bring the goods that are needed most to
combat coronavirus.

The Taskforce will provide cross-sector leadership to ensure business
continuity activity during the coronavirus pandemic for the UK’s maritime
industries (shipping, ports, engineering services and leisure marine) by
Maritime UK, the collective voice for the maritime sector.

The Taskforce includes industry representatives from across the UK’s
£46.1bn maritime industries as well as officials from the Department for
Transport, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and
Department for International Trade.

Its initial focus will be:

To
ensure that companies across the sector can and are accessing the financial
support being made available by government.
To
monitor the adoption of support and report barriers to access.
To make
recommendations on the necessary provision of industry and/or government
support beyond existing measures.
To
coordinate the delivery of any activity that might be necessary in support of
the above aims, such as provision of webinars to aid individual companies in
accessing funding.

The Taskforce will be chaired by Maritime UK Vice Chair and BMT CEO,
Sarah Kenny. Commenting on the Taskforce’s establishment, she said:

“The maritime sector brings in 95% of all goods into the UK. That
includes the food, medical supplies and fuel required to see us through this national
mission.

“However, the ability for our sector to maintain the flow of these
supplies is at risk. Trade is enabled in and out of our country by an ecosystem
of companies, many of which are SMEs. We’re hearing of far too many of these
critically important companies being unable to access the support announced by
the Chancellor. Or where they can, of delays that threaten the survival of the
company.

Maritime UK Chair, Harry Theochari, said:

“Our coastal communities and maritime workers are on the frontline
in keeping freight flowing but are also massively exposed to the downturn. The
Solent region, for instance, is estimating a £3.5bn economic hit from the loss
of cruise line business alone. We’ve got to make sure support gets to the frontline
so that we can survive and rebuild. At the moment, that’s not happening.

“The sector is committed to doing everything we can to keep Britain
supplied, fed and fuelled. But we do need urgent help to get financial support
where it’s needed.”

Members of the Maritime Business Continuity
Taskforce: