Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department plans to take to protect Marine Protected Areas.

Marine protection is a devolved matter and the information provided relates to England only.

We have essentially completed building our comprehensive network of Marine Protected Areas, with 177 sites covering 40% of English waters. All Marine Protected Areas are protected through the planning and licensing regime to ensure activities such as offshore developments do not cause damage. For fishing, good progress has been made to protect sites in the inshore area with over 90 marine protected areas now with byelaws in place to prevent activities such as trawling which could damage protected features on the seabed. The Common Fisheries Policy has inhibited our ability to properly protect offshore areas. At the end of the Transition Period, we will use new powers contained in the Fisheries Bill to put byelaws in place as we have done in the inshore environment. A Call for Evidence for the first sites will be launched shortly, followed by the formal consultation in early 2021. As part of the Environment Bill targets work, we are developing a target requiring that our Marine Protected Areas are effectively protected so that they achieve their conservation objectives.