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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Government is taking in addition to its work at the International Whaling Commission to discourage Japan from resuming Antarctic whaling.

The UK Government raises its opposition to Japan’s whaling under special permit for ‘scientific purposes’ at every appropriate opportunity.

Most recently, the UK Commissioner to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) reiterated the Government’s concerns in relation to Japan’s proposal to resume whaling in the Antarctic at a meeting with the Japanese Commissioner to the IWC in May 2015, and officials from the Japanese Embassy in March 2015. Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Japan and I, as the then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Farming, Food and Marine Environment, have also both written to the Japanese Government on this issue.

Also quite recently, at the meeting of the Scientific Committee, which advises the IWC, members of the UK’s scientific delegation were proactively involved in discussions surrounding the validity of Japan’s proposed Antarctic Whaling Programme.