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 ensure that access to bluefin tuna fishing licences is (a) increased and (b) distributed across inshore fleets, including in coastal communities such as North Cornwall constituency.

In 2026 Defra is making up to 30 licence authorisations available for commercial rod and line fishing for bluefin tuna, double the number in 2025. The fishery is accessed through an application process run by the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) and is open to applicants with eligible vessels registered in any part of the UK. The application process will be open between 8 April and 30 April 2026. The vessel criteria have been chosen to create opportunities for sustainable inshore fishing across the UK.

For bluefin tuna catch and release recreational fisheries (CRRFs), in 2026 Defra is making up to 230 permits available across all UK CRRFs with around 150 of those in English waters. Each Fisheries Administration has the power to open a CRRF in their waters. In England, the MMO will regulate the fishery and ran an application process between 24 March and 13 April 2026.