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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of (a) an increase of minimum landing size, (b) an end to commercial harvesting during the spring spawning period, (c) restrictions on pair trawling and trammel netting and (d) an expansion of estuarine nursery areas as tools for the preservation of sea bass stocks.

Bass management measures for 2015 including these factors were discussed at an EU level on 15 and 16 December at the Fisheries Council but unfortunately agreement was not reached.

We will continue to press for EU action while reviewing our national measures. An earlier assessment by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science on increasing the minimum landing size for bass, entitled “Effects of improved fishery selection pattern and increased MLS on European sea bass” is available in the House Library.