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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will take steps to introduce domestic technical measures to reduce sea bass mortality so that stocks can rebuild.

We still need action at EU level to ensure stocks can rebuild. The Commission and the Member States involved in this fishery have undertaken to remain committed to doing the utmost possible, as of the start of the fishing season in January 2015, to reduce fishing pressure and protect spawning aggregations.

This process need not preclude or delay action at UK level, however, and I have already undertaken to ensure that a review of our domestic management measures for bass now commences as a matter of priority.