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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of operating a carding system to (a) warn and (b) sanction states which (i) export seafood to the UK and (ii) do not cooperate with efforts to tackle illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

The UK, after leaving the European Union, retained the powers originally set out in the EU’s Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing Regulation (1005/2008) to ban imports from countries that do not cooperate with efforts to tackle IUU fishing. Import bans are currently in place on seafood from Cambodia, Comoros and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The UK’s legislative framework also requires the banning of imports and landings of seafood from fishing vessels that are included on the UK’s IUU vessel list as having been identified as engaging in IUU fishing. Other control measures are also in place to manage imports of seafood into the UK from other countries. Such measures include the operation of a catch documentation scheme to ensure seafood imported into the UK is caught in line with national and international regulations on fisheries conservation and sustainable management. Defra will continue to keep under active review steps to combat IUU fishing.