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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help reduce seabird mortality from fisheries bycatch in UK waters.

Defra recognises that accidental bycatch in fisheries is one of the greatest threats faced by sensitive marine species such as seabirds.

To tackle this, Defra funds numerous programmes and projects including: Clean Catch, which is carrying out a seabird bycatch monitoring and mitigation trial in the North Sea whitefish fishery; the Bycatch Monitoring Programme (BMP) which provides essential observer data on incidents of sensitive species bycatch; the ongoing Bycatch Risk Prioritisation Framework to assess species vulnerability to bycatch in all fisheries in the UK; a Seabird Bycatch Action Plan for England.

Defra also plays an international leadership role, for example tabling a recent proposal to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) recommending modifications to fishing gear which have been proven to reduce seabird bycatch in longline fisheries. While not yet adopted, this helps lay the pathway for future work on addressing seabird bycatch in international tuna fisheries.