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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what funding opportunities are available for fishermen impacted by Crustacean Mortality in North East England; how much has been allocated to date; and where that information is published.

The panel of independent experts set up to assess the cause of crustacean mortality could not find a definitive cause for the mortalities, and concluded that maintenance dredging and capital dredging were very unlikely and exceptionally unlikely to have been the cause. A range of support is provided to the English seafood sector through the Fisheries and Seafood Scheme (FaSS) and the £100 million UK Seafood Fund. FaSS includes grants of up to £100,000 to support diversification, such as gear to target new species and processing equipment to develop new products. Since opening in April 2021, FaSS has provided £2.2 million to seafood businesses in the North East and is open for applications now. In addition, the Fisheries Industry Science Partnerships (FISP) scheme, part of the UK Seafood Fund, is providing over £260,000 to a project led by the North-Eastern Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority (NEIFCA) that will help establish an ongoing survey programme for the inshore lobster fishery. Further information on this project can be found here: FISP projects: grants and contracts awarded in round 1 of the scheme - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)