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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she plans to ban bottom trawling in Marine Protected Areas.

The Government’s approach is to restrict fishing which is assessed as damaging to the specific protected features in each Marine Protected Area, based on advice from the Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies. A consultation on the latest round of proposed fisheries byelaws, which proposes further restrictions on bottom trawling, closed on 29 September. The Marine Management Organisation is now carefully considering all responses received, and decisions will be made in due course.