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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Environment Agency is taking to prevent illegal angling in Lancashire.

The Environment Agency’s Fisheries Operations Team uses an intelligence based approach as part of its enforcement plan to target fisheries for rod-licence enforcement. They target waters which have known high evasion rates and busy waters where lots of anglers will see officers enforcing rod-licence compliance. 1,535 rod-licences have been checked this year in Lancashire and 56 anglers have been reported for offences. The detected evasion rate is 3.52%.

Officers regularly meet with the Police to discuss rod-licence and other fisheries offences, as well as providing training for their officers. They also work with the Angling Trust Voluntary Bailiffs to target rod-licence evasion and other fisheries offences, through provision of information to us. This year the Environment Agency worked in partnership with the Angling Trust and Lancashire and Cumbria Police on Operation Clampdown which targeted illegal close season fishing.

The Environment Agency also checks for byelaw compliance to ensure that other elements are correct, such as fishing methods and close seasons. This year they were pleased to find only two offences during the coarse fish close season from 23 patrols undertaken.