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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 10 December 2024 to Question 17501 on Fisheries: Monitoring, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of making it a mandatory requirement for vessels over 24 metres to have cameras onboard under the Remote Electronic Monitoring roll out.

Defra have already assessed which fisheries should have mandatory Remote Electronic Monitoring (REM) and published the results in 2023.

The assessment concluded that over 24 metre pelagic trawlers in English waters should be a priority. Implementation began in summer 2024.

A further four fisheries were also identified as priorities. In those fisheries, REM will be mandatory for vessels over 10 metres.