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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make it his Department's policy to create at least five no-take Highly Protected Marine Areas.

Defra recently consulted on five candidate pilot Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs). The consultation closed on 28 September. The responses and further evidence received are currently being analysed, and will inform the Secretary of State’s decision on whether pilot sites should be designated and if so, what their final site boundaries should be. Any pilot HPMAs would be designated through the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 by 6 July 2023. This would be a year from the start of the consultation as required by the Act.