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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she plans to introduce mandatory Remote Electronic Monitoring for (a) over 24m pelagics vessles, (b) over 10m demersal seine vessels and (c) over 10m demersal trawls.

Defra is working to implement Remote Electronic Monitoring in five priority fisheries. They are:

- Pelagic trawls, over 24m, all English waters

- Demersal seines, over 10m, English waters of the Southern North Sea and English Channel

- Demersal trawls using mesh sizes up to 120mm, over 10m, English waters of the North Sea

- Fixed and drift nets (gill and trammel), over 10m, English waters of the Celtic Sea and English Channel

- Demersal trawls including beam trawls, over 10m, English waters of the Celtic Sea and English Channel

We are working first with volunteers to design and test systems and will then move to mandatory implementation.