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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the paper entitled Marine Protected Areas network report (2019 to 2024), published on 18 December 2024, what steps he plans to take to protect designated features within the MPA network that are not in a favourable condition from (a) destructive forms of fishing and (b) other stressors.

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are already protected from the point of designation by the planning and marine licensing regimes that cover activities such as dredging for aggregates and construction of offshore wind farms. Fishing activity falls outside the scope of these regimes, so fisheries regulators make detailed assessments of the impact of all fishing activities on the protected species and habitats in our MPAs and develop byelaws to restrict fishing when it has been assessed as damaging. Over 60% of England’s 181 MPAs have these byelaws in place.

As mentioned in my answer to PQ 17500, the Department is considering next steps for fisheries management in MPAs in the context of our domestic and international nature conservation obligations and how we support the fishing sector.