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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress he has made on the review of the concurrent fisheries functions which allow a Minister of the Crown to regulate British fishing boats, apart from Welsh fishing boats, in the Welsh zone.

Defra is committed to working with the Welsh Government and the other Devolved Administrations on a review of concurrent fisheries functions in UK law and retained EU law and we will seek to commence discussions shortly.

The Fisheries Act 2020 provides a framework for each administration to license its own vessels wherever they fish, but also provides that a vessel fishing in another administration’s waters should be subject to the same licence conditions as are applied by that administration to its own vessels in its waters.