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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to enforce the legal requirement for non-UK-flagged supertrawlers fishing in UK waters to report marine mammal bycatch to the Marine Management Organisation.

The Government recognises that accidental bycatch in fisheries is one of the greatest threats faced by sensitive marine species such as cetaceans, and we remain fully committed to tackling this issue.

The UK introduced new rules in 2021 making it a mandatory requirement under fishing vessel licence conditions for fishers, including non-UK-flagged large pelagic trawlers, to report any marine mammal bycatch to the Marine Management Organisation (MMO). The UK notified the European Commission that this requirement would be coming into force and is a licence condition for all vessels fishing in our waters.