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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department will propose a measure to ban bottom trawling on all seamounts in NEAFC regulatory areas at this year’s meeting of the Northeast Atlantic Regional Fisheries Management Organisation.

The UK advocates an approach of banning bottom trawling where there is a risk of significant adverse impacts on vulnerable marine ecosystems. The UK therefore will support a proposal at this year’s Annual Meeting of the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) to rollover all existing bottom fishing closures in the NEAFC area from 2022 into 2023.