Bottom Trawling: Marine Protected Areas

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. It is also a great pleasure to be here with my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) and other colleagues with interests in fish. We meet relatively regularly in this Chamber to discuss various fishy issues.

I am particularly interested in this issue and I think that this has been a really useful contribution to the debate on MPAs. Our network of MPAs is one of our most important tools for protecting the wide range of precious and sensitive habitats and species that our water contains. We have established a comprehensive network of MPAs in the UK; we have 178 in England, covering 40% of English waters. In fact—perhaps I have not explained this sufficiently widely before—bottom trawling is already banned in 102 of those 178 MPAs.

MPAs protect specific features within the designated site to allow those features to recover to a favourable condition, meaning that they are in a good and healthy state. One example is the Solent and Dorset coast special protection area, which protects internationally important terns. Birds and other species can also be a critical part of the MPA network. The SPA is very important to the terns, as much of the sea around their breeding colonies is the ideal habitat for their plunge feeding.

We know that designating the MPAs is only part of the story. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell said, it is essential that they are properly protected; otherwise, they can do no good at all. We also recognise that there are growing spatial tensions between industries such as fishing, dredging, oil and gas and the renewable energies sector, alongside the very real need to conserve and enhance our marine environment.

Bottom trawling is a broad term used to describe methods of pulling fishing gear along the seabed to catch both fish and shellfish. Bottom-towed gears fall broadly into three groups—trawls, dredges and seines—with multiple types of gears within those groups. Bottom trawls are used by all parts of the fishing fleet, from small day boats to large offshore vessels. It is fair to say that all types of vessels can cause real damage if the wrong type of gear is used in the wrong way. The main effects of bottom trawling are linked to the scraping of the seabed by the fishing gear.

We need to be aware that approximately 45% of the value of the fish landed in the UK comes from bottom trawling, which includes cod, plaice and scallops. It is therefore important that we work with the fishing sector as we begin progressively to reduce the adverse effects of these types of fishing methods.

[Luke Pollard]

The Minister is making a sound case of stating where we are up to. However, does she note that the supertrawlers, of which the UK has none and which so plunder many of our MPAs, land their fish in foreign ports? Many of our bottom trawlers already fish outside MPAs and land in UK ports. However, the trawlers over which there is real concern have no economic benefit to the UK because they land their fish abroad.

[Victoria Prentis]

The hon. Gentleman touches on a very important point, and I will be coming to supertrawlers later. As ever, we have to find the balance between actions that we know are not great for the environment and the economic benefit to and protection of coastal communities and the processing that is so valuable to so many of those communities. That is the point I am trying to make: this is an important and delicate balance. It is important that we recognise the scale of the challenge. Some 45% of the value of fish landed in the UK comes from this type of gear. We must continue to work with rather than against the fishing industry in getting that balance right.

A blanket ban on bottom trawling has all the appeal of simplicity, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell makes the case in his typically persuasive manner. However, it is fair to say that not all MPAs are designated to protect features that are affected by bottom trawling. The MMO and IFCAs have embarked on a programme of detailed site-by-site analysis of each MPA. As I have said, they have done 102 bans of bottom trawling, so more than half—57%, I think—have already been dealt with in this way. Each assessment is informed by scientific advice, then byelaws are designed for each area. I do hear, however, what my right hon. Friend has said about making those byelaws sufficiently simple for fishermen to follow without difficulty. I recognise that that detailed approach takes more time than a blanket ban, but I think it is worth it to avoid unnecessary impacts on our fishing industry.

We have made the most progress in our inshore waters. There are 98 MPAs with byelaws in place to protect sensitive habitats and species from bottom trawling. The management measures have been brought in by engaging with the fishing industry, and also by engagement through the IFCA network, which has been very valuable in some cases.

My right hon. Friend was also seeking Brexit benefits. It is definitely true to say that in the offshore MPAs there is a benefit that we would not have been able to achieve without the benefit of Brexit. Before the end of the transition period, we really were restrained in implementing management measures in offshore MPAs because of vetoes imposed by other EU states that fished there. Now we are pressing on with protecting those areas too, and I am pleased to say that on 13 June we put in place byelaws to protect four of our most sensitive offshore areas, including Dogger Bank.

We are definitely not going to stop there, and last month we published a call for evidence on the next 13 offshore sites. We have developed a programme to bring in management for the other 23 offshore sites in English waters by 2024. That is a workstream with which I am determined to press ahead, ensuring that we keep this moving.

The MMO has fully engaged with the fishing industry in developing those plans, and will continue to do so, to ensure that they provide robust protection and that they do not restrict fishing any more than they need to. We will also continue to work with our international partners, and we will—while not allowing them to veto our plans —aim to include them in our consultation process.

Supertrawlers have been mentioned by several Members. Those vessels are usually pelagic trawlers. They fish in the water column. As such, they are not likely to come into contact with the seabed habitats and species, which is what most of our MPAs are designed to protect. They do, of course, have a significant effect on the stock that they are coming to target. They are extremely efficient at fishing and can fish a stock extraordinarily quickly, but, as the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) has said, do not always land the catch in this country. There are many reasons for continuing to look at whether supertrawlers bring us real benefit. I am not sure that the most persuasive of those is the MPA network, but that does not stop us continuing to assess them.

Site-based protection does not mitigate the impacts from those vessels that target migratory stocks, which many of them do, but we are looking closely at what our policies for those vessels should be, and it is important that those decisions should be based on the evidence.

Following the work of my dear friend Lord Benyon, we are ready to launch the next set of work on highly protected marine areas—those areas of the sea that allow for the protection and complete recovery of green ecosystems. We have shortlisted five pilot sites for consultation, which will start shortly. For HPMAs to be successful, we will need to work very closely with the local fishing industry, other marine industries and other sea users in designating, managing and monitoring what goes on in those areas. There is a great deal to be gained from those areas, both environmentally and scientifically, if we are able to get this work right, but it has to be done sensitively and relatively slowly.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell for introducing an interesting debate. Progress has been made, but he is right to keep pressing us on what we can do further to protect our precious marine environment.

Question put and agreed to.