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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the effect on marine life of sea scraping by industrial trawlers.

The impacts of all fishing activities are taken into account when we assess the status of UK seas and set targets to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) under the UK Marine Strategy. Our last assessment, carried out in 2019 under Part One of the Strategy, showed that commercial fishing is one of the predominant pressures preventing GES of UK seas, in particular some seabed habitats, from being achieved. To help address this we committed to assessing the feasibility of setting up a partnership working group with key stakeholders to identify solutions for potential fishing impacts on seabed integrity.

Work is also currently underway to update Part Three of the Strategy, which sets out the programmes and measures we are taking in our waters to help us move towards or maintain GES. Included as part of these measures will be the new Fisheries Act which now allows UK Authorities to manage fishing activity in our waters and will help to achieve the UK's vision of a clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse ocean and seas. In addition, the Act will allow fisheries management measures in our offshore Marine Protected Areas to be taken forward.