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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his policy is on banning the use of electric pulse fishing in UK waters after the UK leaves the EU.

The original ban on fishing methods using electric current in EU legislation was followed by a specific derogation to permit electric pulse beam trawl fishing under certain conditions. Those arrangements are currently under consideration.

We will continue to consider all the scientific evidence to inform our negotiations on the EU approach and to develop the UK’s future fisheries regime. The government does have concerns about some of the impacts of pulse trawling.

Whatever the outcome on pulse fishing agreed in EU legislation, once we leave the EU we will decide the terms of access to UK waters. That will give us the ability to ban certain approaches where the latest scientific evidence indicates that is necessary.