Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what biodiversity studies the Government has commissioned with regard to seabed mining.

The National Environmental Research Council has conducted a scientific expedition in 2015 to look at biodiversity in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. This work was part of the Managing Impacts of Deep Sea Resource Exploitation project. In 2012 Defra approved a plan of work by Lockheed Martin to look at the environmental aspects of manganese nodule commercial recovery from the deep seabed surface in the Clarion Clipperton Zone, Equatorial Pacific Ocean.

The International Seabed Authority does not carry out environmental impact assessments but does decide on the quality of Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) provided by external contractors and does provide guidance on what an EIS should cover. The UK government is committed to ensuring that exploiting deep sea mineral resources is only undertaken to the highest environmental standard and nominated Dr Gordon Patterson of the National History Museum as one of the members of the Legal and Technical Commission (LTC) of the International Seabed Authority. The LTC reviews the plans of work adopted under exploration contracts and the performance of contractors against those agreed plans of work. By nominating a world leading expert we are helping to ensure that the work of the ISA is assessed by the highest quality independent scientific advisers.