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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to tackle the potential impacts of bycatch on marine species.

Working in partnership with the fishing industry, academics, and eNGOs, Defra fund a range of initiatives including: continuation of the long-standing Bycatch Monitoring Programme (BMP) which reports annually on bycatch rates analysed by gear type; the Cetacean Stranding Investigation Programme (CSIP) that closely monitors UK-wide cetacean strandings and conducts post-mortems on stranded marine mammals; the Clean Catch programme which works with fisheries in England to develop and trial ways to gather data on and mitigate the bycatch of sensitive marine species; a comprehensive evidence review analysing bycatch across sensitive marine species (cetaceans, seabirds, seals, elasmobranchs); continuation of funding the Cefas fisheries observer programme; and collaborating with stakeholders to develop a seabird bycatch action plan for England.