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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress the Government has made on rebalancing the UK's inland water quotas to smaller, specific locally-based fishing communities.

The Government regularly reviews its quota allocation policy. In recent years it has permanently realigned unused quota from Producer Organisations and allocated the first 100 tonnes, plus 10% of any remaining uplift in quota resulting from the introduction of the Landing Obligation, to the small-scale inshore fleet.

These changes equate to over 1500 tonnes, or an additional £3 million worth of fish, for the small-scale fleet in 2016.