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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the level of compliance with the legal requirement for fishing vessels to report marine mammal bycatch.

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 Marine Management Organisation (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. MMO is planning to communicate again with fishers this summer in order to ensure that rules are clear, and skippers comply with requirements. Responsibility for enforcing licence conditions in Scotland and Northern Ireland is a matter for the Devolved Administrations.