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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many pollack were sampled by his Department for (a) length and (b) sex in the last 12 months.

You asked how many pollack were sampled by the Department for (a) length and (b) sex in the last twelve months. Data has been provided for the twelve months of 2023, as pollack collected in 2024 have not yet been analysed.

3,237 pollack lengths were measured by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) in 2023. Cefas are unable to determine the sex of the fish sampled because they are landed gutted. These pollack were sampled across all quarters of 2023 on a total of 64 trips in the southwest of England.