Asked by: Lord Teverson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to publish a comprehensive, up to date list of fishing vessel licences, including sanctions for fisheries and labour offences, in line with principle two of the Global Charter for Fisheries Transparency.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Marine Management Organisation (MMO), acting on behalf of all UK Fisheries Authorities, publishes lists of all UK registered and licensed fishing vessels each month. This includes vessel characteristics and licence information. There is currently no requirement to publish enforcement statistics or details of sanctions relating to non-compliance with fisheries regulations and MMO does not routinely do so. It does, however, share details of specific cases where there may be a wider public interest or where it is considered appropriate to do so, and it continues to engage with the fisheries sector on compliance matters directly, through established groups and networks, and through wider-reaching awareness campaigns.
The UK Government welcomes the broad principles underpinning the Global Charter for Fisheries Transparency and continues to review the steps we can take to combat illegal fishing. We welcome the ongoing engagement with the organisations who have produced the Charter.
Asked by: Lord Teverson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of the remote electronic monitoring programme in delivering the programme's objectives for UK fisheries, and what steps they will take to ensure that key objectives are met in line with published timelines.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The remote electronic monitoring programme is still in the early stages of implementation. An evaluation will assess the effectiveness of the programme as well as how we met our key objectives. At this stage, the programme is too early in its testing to assess the evidence. The evaluation will report regularly throughout the programme, starting autumn 2025.
Asked by: Lord Teverson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to incentivise participation in the early-adopter phase of installing remote electronic monitoring on fishing vessels in UK waters; what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of those incentives; and what plans they have, if any, to expand incentives in the future.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra has carefully considered how to incentivise fishing industry participation in the early adopter phases of the remote electronic monitoring programme. The programme is still in the early stages of implementation; it is therefore too early to draw upon how we can assess the effectiveness of those incentives.
Defra funds remote electronic monitoring equipment and installation for vessels that volunteer to be early adopters. Participation also gives the fishing industry an opportunity to shape the programme alongside resolving potential operational issues as we test them. An additional benefit to industry for early participation is that it may support applications by fishing operators to the Quota Allocation Mechanism, or for sustainability certification.
A volunteer vessel has been secured for the first early adopter project – deploying REM on large pelagic trawlers. This project is now underway. We are in the process of seeking further volunteers for the second early adopter project – deploying remote electronic monitoring on demersal seines (flyseines).
Asked by: Lord Teverson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to recommendations of Arijit De of the University of Manchester in his article 'Rattling the supply chains: creating a more sustainable way to do business', published on 22 April, to reduce traditional road freight and its emissions through the greater use of maritime transport.
Answered by Baroness Gustafsson - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Globalised supply chains remain a crucial part of our nation's economic growth. This government is actively working to strengthen the resilience of supply chains critical to the UK's economic security and growth, ensuring they remain secure, diverse, and sustainable in the face of global challenges. This includes work being done by the Department for Transport to encourage modal shift of freight from road to rail or water. We will consider the University of Manchester's report and its recommendations as part of our wider programme of work.
Asked by: Lord Teverson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is their policy for publishing information about enforcement actions for non-compliance with fisheries regulations in English waters; and what measures they are implementing, if any, to increase public access to information about enforcement activities, penalties and sanctions, for breach of those regulations.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
There is currently no requirement to publish enforcement statistics relating to non-compliance with fisheries regulations in English waters and the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) does not routinely do so. It does, however, share details of specific court cases where there may be a wider public interest or where it is considered appropriate to do so, and it continues to engage with the fisheries sector on compliance matters directly, through established groups and networks, and through wider-reaching awareness campaigns.
Asked by: Lord Teverson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what measures are in place to ensure that all catches are accurately recorded and accounted for in line with the bycatch objective under section 1(6)(b) of the Fisheries Act 2020; what assessment they have made of the adequacy of these measures in achieving this objective; and what plans they have to enhance monitoring of catches in the short term.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
As fisheries control and enforcement is a devolved matter, each UK Fisheries Administration is responsible for ensuring catches from their waters are reported accurately. In English waters, the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) monitors all catches from commercially licensed fishing vessels, for vessels over 10 metres, information is recorded in logbooks whilst English vessels under 10 metres record their catches using a purpose-built mobile app or website. All catch data is submitted to the MMO to provide an accurate picture of how much fish we are taking from our seas. To ensure catch details are accounted for correctly, the MMO regularly conduct inspections of fishing vessels based upon a risk-based intelligence led marine enforcement model.
Defra has been reviewing the operation of the landing obligation as part of wider reforms to discards management in England. In 2025, these reforms include trialling changes to how we account for catches. This work aims to help ensure that catches are recorded and accounted for and contribute to the achievement of the bycatch objective.
Asked by: Lord Teverson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by the Minister of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 10 October 2024 (HC6250), whether it is their intention to ratify the International Maritime Organisation's 2012 Cape Town Agreement on the Safety of Fishing Vessels at the United Nations Oceans Conference in June 2025; and whether they will fully align their policies with the Global Charter for Fisheries Transparency.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK Government fully supports the Cape Town Agreement. It is the first global agreement on fishing safety. It provides mandatory minimum standards to safeguard fishers working at sea and deters vessel operators from engaging in Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. The Agreement achieves this by making poor working conditions subject to detention and inspection globally.
We have worked to ensure that the UK can accede to the Cape Town Agreement. Subject to Parliamentary Scrutiny, we will instruct the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to conclude accession. This will be as soon as possible.
The UK Government also welcomes the broad principles underpinning the Global Charter for Fisheries Transparency. We see considerable merit in its objective of improving transparency and accountability in global fisheries governance and management.
The UK has already implemented many of the policies set out in the Charter. We will continue to keep under active review the steps we can take to combat IUU fishing and will continue to welcome engagement with the organisations which have produced the Charter.
Asked by: Lord Teverson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will include measures to promote nature recovery in the Future Homes Standard.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
We intend to publish the Future Homes Standard later this year. The focus of the Future Homes Standard will be to ensure new homes are highly energy efficient and that they are zero carbon ready, meaning they will become zero carbon as the electricity grid fully decarbonises, without the need for any retrofit work.
While nature recovery is beyond the scope of the Future Homes Standard, the National Planning Policy Framework is clear that planning policies and decisions should contribute to and enhance the natural and local environment by minimising impacts on and providing net gains for biodiversity, including by establishing coherent ecological networks that are more resilient to current and future pressures and incorporating features which support priority or threatened species such as swifts, bats and hedgehogs.
Furthermore, the National Model Design Code and Natural England’s Green Infrastructure Framework set out how development can incorporate a range of nature friendly features including hedgehog highways, bee bricks, and bricks with a hole which can benefit sparrows, tree sparrows, swifts, starling, and bats.
These combined approaches will ensure that we are able to support the environment as well as helping us deliver the housing and infrastructure we need.
Asked by: Lord Teverson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government what the relationship will be between the biodiversity net gain rules and the future Nature Restoration Fund.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Last year the Environment Act introduced a new mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) requirement of 10% for new developments, subject to some exceptions.
The Nature Restoration Fund will be in addition to BNG and will run concurrently, focusing on enabling development in areas where that has stalled due to specific environmental obligations relating to impacts on protected sites or species in those areas
We will ensure that developers receive a user-friendly experience and that BNG credit and the Nature Restoration Fund revenue is deployed in a joined-up manner to maximise environmental outcomes.
Asked by: Lord Teverson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to reduce VAT on reused, refurbished and repaired goods to incentivise circular consumer practices.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Second-hand goods may already benefit from a reduced rate of VAT under the VAT margin scheme. Sellers of eligible goods are not required to charge VAT on the full final sale price of the good, but instead on the difference between the amount paid for the item and the final sale price.
VAT is the UK’s second largest tax, forecast to raise £171 billion in 2024/25. Tax breaks reduce the revenue available for vital public services and must represent value for money for the taxpayer. Exceptions to the standard rate have always been limited and balanced against affordability considerations.
The government has no plans to further reduce VAT on reused, refurbished and repaired goods.