Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the potential effect on UK defence capacity of directing increased Royal Navy resources towards potentially illegal fishing activity.

Defence has made contingency plans to increase support to DEFRA to cover any potential illegal fishing activity if requested. We balance any request for assistance against critical outputs and keep our support under constant review. In the short term, we have units at increased readiness to support DEFRA and they will continue with planned activity until called forward.