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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for what reason his Department drafted the fisheries support scheme conditions to exclude sail-powered fisheries from being eligible for financial support.

The Government is delivering support to catching and shellfish aquaculture businesses affected by the impact of Covid-19 or new trading conditions via the Seafood Response Fund.

In order to ensure that funding is targeted only at businesses which are dependent on fishing as their main source of income, the criteria for the scheme specify that all beneficiaries must have at least £10,000 in seafood catch sales. In order to verify that businesses meet the criteria and that the scheme represents value for money for the taxpayer, we must rely on a combination of sales data, vessel licensing data and reference data for calculating average fixed costs for that class of vessel.

Businesses, including sail-powered fisheries businesses, whose vessel is not licensed or registered for the commercial activity of fisheries, and for whom we do not hold sales data to demonstrate they meet the sales threshold, are not eligible for the scheme. Such businesses, however, may still be eligible for wider Government support for organisations impacted by Covid-19.