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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for what reason an environmental impact assessment has not been conducted on the use of fly shooting equipment in the southern North Sea and English Channel prior to licenses for that activity being issued by the UK Single Issuing Authority.

Licences are issued to all vessels that have eligibility to fish in UK waters and have no history of illegal fishing. As a newly independent Coastal State we will be considering the impacts of various fishing activities when we undertake our programme of domestic fisheries management reform.