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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of underwater noise emissions from commercial shipping on wildlife in UK territorial waters.

Under the UK Marine Strategy, the UK Government is working to ensure that underwater noise-generating human activities do not pose a significant risk to marine ecosystems.

We currently have a limited understanding of the distribution of noise in UK seas and its impact on vulnerable species. To address this in relation to sources of continuous noise such as shipping, the UK has established a noise monitoring network, consisting of long-term monitoring stations deployed in coastal waters. The information from this monitoring network will be matched with species distributions and used to inform future policy.

At present, it remains unclear whether changes in shipping activity have resulted in an increase in continuous noise levels. The International Maritime Organization has made recommendations to improve efficiency standards in newly built ships, which will also make them less noisy (more hydrodynamic ships are more efficient and also tend to create less noise).