Asked by: Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the Government plans to maintain the discard ban on fish after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by George Eustice
The UK Government remains fully committed to ending the wasteful practice of discarding after the UK leaves the EU and will continue to work with the industry to address this issue.
Asked by: Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his policy is on banning the use of electric pulse fishing in UK waters after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by George Eustice
The original ban on fishing methods using electric current in EU legislation was followed by a specific derogation to permit electric pulse beam trawl fishing under certain conditions. Those arrangements are currently under consideration.
We will continue to consider all the scientific evidence to inform our negotiations on the EU approach and to develop the UK’s future fisheries regime. The government does have concerns about some of the impacts of pulse trawling.
Whatever the outcome on pulse fishing agreed in EU legislation, once we leave the EU we will decide the terms of access to UK waters. That will give us the ability to ban certain approaches where the latest scientific evidence indicates that is necessary.
Asked by: Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has made an assessment on the benefits for Great Britain and Northern Ireland's coastal communities of the marine resources in the UK's Exclusive Economic Zone being used solely for the benefit of the UK after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by George Eustice
On leaving the EU, the UK will become an independent coastal state with responsibility for controlling and managing our Exclusive Economic Zone. This will provide an opportunity to negotiate new agreements on access and quota arrangements which will benefit our coastal communities. We are undertaking ongoing analysis on fish stocks in our waters.
Asked by: Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the entirety of the Fisheries acquis will be transferred into domestic legislation in the EU (Withdrawal) Bill.
Answered by George Eustice
The purpose of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill is to provide stability and certainty so that wherever practical, the same laws and rules will apply immediately before and immediately after our departure. On that basis, most of the fisheries acquis will be transferred into domestic legislation. The Queen’s Speech, however, set out the Government’s plans for a fisheries bill for the UK to control access to its waters and set fishing opportunities when we leave the EU and the Common Fisheries Policy. Provisions in the Fisheries Bill would supersede the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill.
Asked by: Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much and what proportion of England and Wales fishing quotas are accounted for by Cornelis Vrolijk.
Answered by George Eustice
The Cornelis Vrolijk holds 457,166 Fixed Quota Allocation units. These units were equivalent to 38,900 tonnes of fishing quota in 2016. This amount was 25% of the total quota for England and Wales, or 7% of the UK quota in 2016.
Asked by: Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much has been spent on flood defences in South Thanet in each of the last five years.
Answered by Baroness Coffey
Between April 2011 and March 2016, £31.2 million have been spent in the South Thanet constituency to deliver flood and coastal risk management schemes, better protecting 1,918 properties. The table below summarises spending for each of the last five years.
2015/16 | £3,444,630 |
2014/15 | £9,673,122 |
2013/14 | £8,258,145 |
2012/13 | £9,282,870 |
2011/12 | £590,203 |