Louise Haigh – 2024 Speech on Maritime Policy

The speech made by Louise Haigh, the Secretary of State for Transport, in London on 17 September 2024.

Thank you very much, it’s fantastic to be here at the launch of London International Shipping Week. Where better to deliver my first maritime address as Secretary of State than at the IMO.

Not only the global seat of maritime governance where shipping has been made safer, our seas cleaner, this industry more secure. But an enduring symbol, 75 years on from its creation, of this city’s role in maritime’s past, present and future.

It’s why London hosts the premier event in the shipping calendar, with 30,000 visitors attending over 300 events for London International Shipping Week last year. Although being a girl from Yorkshire, I should say this is about the whole UK maritime sector as well. Last year we celebrated progress made, confronted challenges ahead and continued the vital work of future-proofing this historic sector.

With like-minded states and dynamic businesses, we turned partnership into progress – accelerating work on green corridors, signing memorandums of understanding to explore the opportunities of AI, and showcasing new fully electric vehicles on the Thames.

All positive steps, which, next year, we absolutely must work together to turn into giant leaps. Because this sector faces more change in the next 30 years than it’s seen in the past 3,000 and all of us, government and industry, must be ready.

Take new technology, which will transform how maritime is powered. It will end the sector’s reliance on dirty energy. A reliance that has seen domestic shipping emissions outpace those of buses, coaches and rail combined.

Already, in this very building, the global community has agreed decarbonisation targets by around 2050. And over the coming years, Britain will continue to take the lead. Not only delivering our mission to make this country a clean energy superpower, but rallying the world to ensure those targets don’t slip from view. And we’ll explore the possibilities of autonomous shipping, never to replace human passion and experience, but to achieve levels of productivity and safety currently beyond our capabilities.

So, whether it’s hydrogen or battery power, green corridors or smart shipping, I will build on what’s come before and go further, much further, move faster – and match the ambition that’s already being displayed in our world leading sector – setting this industry on course towards a future of cleaner growth.

Steering us towards that future will be maritime’s workforce – over 200,000 strong, touching every part of the country. They are the lifeblood of this sector.

I know that working at sea isn’t just a job. My uncle left home at 16 – he ran away from home – to join the Merchant Navy. My grandma didn’t even know where he’d gone – but it changed his life forever. It gave him ambitions and opportunities that he couldn’t have otherwise achieved.

Because a maritime career represents the opportunity to be part of something bigger than yourself. We have all seen that on display, when maritime workers were tasked with getting this island nation through a pandemic, while much of the economy ground to a halt. They facilitated our global trade, almost all of which flows through our ports, before lining supermarket shelves, filling hospital stock rooms and landing on our doorsteps.

Maritime’s future depends on that workforce and on growing the pool of talent that it draws from. It means we can create a more resilient and innovative sector, proudly diverse in gender, background and skills.

It’s a future where coders and data analysts rub shoulders with engineers and seafarers – all choosing maritime as the place to launch and sustain a career. But that requires progress, real progress, on making the sector a more attractive place to work and stay.

It has now been over 2 years since the P&O Ferries scandal shook this country and the maritime sector. Clearly, not enough has been done since. I know many of you in this room will have been equally as shocked by those events. And this government is determined to start to put injustices like these right with our plan to ‘Make Work Pay’.

We’ll end the worst fire and rehire practices that undercut the rights and protections of workers, and undermine confidence in our economy. Because we know that the way to grow our economy, and to make maritime a more attractive home for a new generation of seafarers, is through a partnership between business and working people, which can be a rising tide that lifts all of us, in every corner of the country.

Today you have my assurance that I will place this sector at the heart of this government’s plan for a decade of national renewal. Economic growth. A clean energy superpower. Breaking barriers to opportunity. Whatever this government’s mission – maritime is at the heart of it.

We’ll harness London’s world leading strengths in maritime law and insurance. We’ll support exciting green projects up and down the country. And we’ll breathe new economic life into our vital coastal communities and ports.

Friends, I believe maritime’s best days aren’t confined to history but lie ahead. So, tonight, let’s fire the starting gun – or break the champagne – for London International Shipping Week 2025, making it the biggest and most impactful to date.

I know that many of you feel that maritime’s outsized contribution to our economy sails under the radar and that many of you don’t always get the recognition you deserve. But as Transport Secretary, I will champion you and this sector at every opportunity. And work with you, day in day out, not simply to secure maritime’s future, but the future of our economy and our country too.