Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether surveys of fish populations have been undertaken in British waters off Ascension Island to ascertain the effects of industrial fishing.

Commercial fish populations around Ascension island are highly migratory and are managed under ICCAT (The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas) for the whole Atlantic. Between 2010-2013 when commercial fishing vessels operated around Ascension scientific data, including on bycatch, was collected by national observers on the vessels and is available through scientific papers presented at ICCAT.