Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make a statement on the outcome of the 36th Annual Meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.

​The UK achieved important objectives at the last Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) meeting, which was held in October 2017. These included: agreement to sustainable fishing quotas in South Georgia & the South Sandwich Islands in line with UK scientific advice; protection of the marine area exposed by the recent calving of the Larsen C iceshelf from any commercial fishing until 2028; and agreement to more effective paperwork to underpin the CCAMLR System of Inspection. The CCAMLR Commission also elected a British candidate to be the next Executive Secretary, commencing in April 2018. Following the successful agreement at the 2016 CCAMLR meeting to establish the world's largest Marine Protected Area in the Ross Sea, discussions continued on the UK co-sponsored proposal for a marine protected area (MPA) in East Antarctica, and further scientific discussions took place about the design of future MPA proposals in the Weddell Sea and Antarctic Peninsula region.