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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has had recent discussions with his counterpart in Northern Ireland on the number of skilled workers employed in the Northern Irish fisheries industry.

The Government believes that every role in the fishing industry in Northern Ireland requires a wide variety of skills. The most recent statistics from the Marine Management Organisation’s Sea Fisheries Statistics 2022 show that the fishing industry in Northern Ireland employed 799 people, all of whom are skilled.