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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support the fishing industry.

The Government's objective for fisheries is to have healthy fish stocks, a prosperous fishing industry and a healthy marine environment. The fundamental reform of the Common Fisheries Policy that the UK worked so hard to achieve has an important role in ensuring this, and the Government will continue to make financial support available under the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund to help the sector achieve these objectives.

Regionalisation provides a process to work with other Member States and the industry to making fisheries management decisions closer to the fishery and those affected. This is an important step away from the ‘one-size-fits-all' approach to fisheries management. Legally binding requirements to set fishing rates at sustainable levels ensure an end to the overfishing we have seen in the past. The landing obligation will see an end to the wasteful practice of discards and improvements in avoiding unwanted catches in the first place.

All of this will improve fish stocks, allowing greater catches to be taken and thereby providing a more economically and environmentally sustainable future for the fishing industry.