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 agree ambitious targets for ocean recovery with the devolved Adminstrations.

The Government has already agreed ambitious targets for ocean recovery with the Devolved Administrations, through our statutory UK Marine Strategy (UKMS). The UKMS sets out a vision for UK waters to achieve clean, safe, healthy, biologically diverse and productive seas, which are used sustainably. It also provides a legal framework, agreed with the Devolved Administrations, for assessing and monitoring the status of our seas and to put in place the measures needed to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES).

In October 2019 we published an updated UKMS Part One which provided an assessment of UK marine waters, objectives for GES and targets and indicators to measure progress towards GES. Meanwhile, the updated UKMS Part Two, published in March 2021, sets out the monitoring programmes we will use to assess those targets and indicators in the period up to 2024. We are currently in the process of developing an updated UKMS Part Three, which will set out an updated programmes of measures for achieving or maintaining GES, and aim to consult on this later in 2021.

The UKMS demonstrates the combined commitments of the UK Government and the Devolved Administrations to work together to protect our biologically diverse and productive seas. However, to protect our seas and facilitate ocean recovery effectively, we also need to work with other countries. The UK plays a leading role in OSPAR (the regional sea convention for the North East Atlantic). We coordinate our efforts with our neighbours to ensure the best protection for our seas whilst maintaining their sustainable use.