Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will support the policy of the European Council of Ministers on the North Sea Multiannual Plan to legally sanction overfishing of bottom dwelling fish stocks such as cod and haddock over the next five years.
The draft North Sea Multi Annual Plan includes an upper range for fishing consistent with Maximum Sustainable Yield. Exploitation rates may be set within this upper range only in certain prescribed circumstances, for example to maintain balance in a mixed fishery. The UK supports this general approach, which we consider to be consistent with the principle of sustainable fisheries.