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

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to (1) protect, and (2) enhance, the marine environment through (a) no-take zones, and (b) marine protected areas.

The government recently announced the first three Highly Protected Marine Areas in English waters. These areas will prohibit all extractive, destructive, and depositional activities, including all fishing, enabling nature to fully recover by increasing marine biodiversity and supporting climate-resilient ecosystems. The government will explore additional Highly Protected Marine areas this year.

We have already built a comprehensive network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) covering 40% of English waters and are now focusing on making sure they are properly protected. MPAs are protected through the planning and marine licensing regimes and we are aiming to have all MPAs in English waters protected from damaging fishing activity by 2024. This will help achieve our new legally-binding target to have 70% of protected features in MPAs in favourable condition by 2042, with the remainder in a recovering condition.