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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment his Department has made of fish stocks in the River Ribble.

To assess the health of England’s salmon rivers and sea trout rivers the Environment Agency carries out annual assessments against salmon stock targets using angler rod catch data. The 2016 assessment places the Ribble in the ‘probably at risk’ category, and the 5 year prediction places it in the poorer ‘at risk’ category. Defra has signed off regulations to cap the number of salmon available to the net and rod fishery. Moreover the Environment Agency and its partners launched the Salmon 5 Point Approach in 2015.

Recent assessments of sea trout stocks indicate a healthier picture with the River Ribble deemed ‘not at risk’. The Environment Agency also undertook fish monitoring in the Ribble. In 2016, sites were surveyed throughout the catchment. The results indicate that the salmon and trout are still present in the catchment although salmon have shown a decline which is in line with the number of adults returning. The numbers of trout show average populations and there are small numbers of coarse fish present in the lower Ribble catchment.