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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department is taking steps to help ensure that fishers meet the mandatory requirement under their fishing vessel licence conditions to report any bycatch of marine mammals to the Marine Management Organisation within 48 hours.

The Government recognises that accidental bycatch in fisheries is one of the greatest threats faced by sensitive marine species such as cetaceans, and we remain fully committed to tackling this issue.

The UK introduced new rules in 2021 making it a mandatory requirement under fishing vessel licence conditions for fishers to report any marine mammal bycatch to the MMO. On the introduction of this requirement, communications were sent out by Defra, the Devolved Administrations and the MMO to ensure that industry understood the new obligations. Responsibility for enforcing licence conditions in Scotland and Northern Ireland is a matter for the Devolved Administrations.