Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to secure a global treaty to protect the high seas by 2020.

The FCO leads, with close cooperation from DEFRA, on the negotiations to develop an international legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ process). The first meeting of the UN Inter-governmental conference to develop the new international instrument started, on 4 September 2018 and the UK is represented by FCO and DEFRA officials. The Government fully supports the United Nations BBNJ process to develop an ambitious agreement which we would like to see concluded in 2020.