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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which (a) Ministers and (b) officials from her Department will attend the UN discussions on a global ocean treaty in New York in June 2020.

Conservation of the ocean is a priority for this Government. We are committed to concluding negotiations on a new legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction. Defra plays a key role in the negotiation team and we will be sending four officials from marine policy, in addition to officials from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the lead Department for the negotiations, to attend the fourth intergovernmental conference from 23 March – 3 April 2020.