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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent steps he has taken to ensure that commercial fishing becomes more sustainable (a) in the UK and (b) globally.

The UK Government remains fully committed to sustainable fisheries management and the principle of maximum sustainable yield (MSY). This will not change once we are outside the EU.

In recent years we have successfully introduced a range of selectivity and spatial avoidance measures in our fisheries to help reduce unwanted bycatch and discarding, including cod in the Irish Sea nephrops fishery. In the North Sea, a fleet of vessels participating in an annual scheme to fully document catches have successfully cut their unwanted catch of unmarketable fish, including undersized fish, from their mixed fishery. We also continue to take a strong and principled position on sustainable fishing internationally, including most recently calling for reductions in catches of yellowfin tuna at the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission, and arguing against an in year increase in the total allowable catch for North East Atlantic mackerel as part of a balanced sustainable approach.

The Fisheries Bill introduced to Parliament in October 2018 provides a framework to enable us to continue to push for more stocks being fished at MSY and delivering our ambition for sustainable fishing in the future. The first clause will enact several sustainability objectives, one of which is to restore fish stocks to levels capable of producing MSY. The Bill provides for a binding duty on the UK and devolved administrations to produce a statutory Joint Fisheries Statement. This statement must include policies for the achievement of the sustainability objectives.