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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help protect seabird populations.

We have several policy delivery programmes that contribute to the protection and conservation of seabirds, supporting our mission on nature’s recovery. These include integrating seabird needs into our strategic marine spatial planning; management and review of our marine protected areas (MPA) network; delivering measures to reduce seabird bycatch; and pushing for seabird protections internationally.

We have established a Seabird Conservation Coordination Group, comprising Government officials, experts, environmental NGOs and industry representation. This group is considering recommendations in Natural England’s English Seabird Conservation and Recovery Pathway report, and helping to coordinate, monitor and drive delivery of priority actions for seabirds across our programmes of work. We will continue to work with devolved Governments on next steps, including as they implement their respective seabird conservation strategies.