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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if the Government will conduct an assessment on the effect on salmon and sea trout stocks of an increase in the bass stock.

The Government has no plans to conduct an assessment on the effect on salmon and trout stocks of such an increase, but previous studies show that salmon have a number of predators including pike, cod, sea trout and bass.

Current assessment of the EU bass stocks indicate a rapidly declining biomass due to an extended period of poor reproduction and increasing fishing mortality. There is no obvious correlation between bass predation and salmon stocks since both have been declining.