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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking through Fisheries Management Plans to help ensure the requirement under Article 6.3 of the Fisheries Act 2020 to restore fish populations to sustainable levels is met.

Fisheries Management Plans are evidence-based plans developed in accordance with the Fisheries Act 2020. They set out short, medium and long-term actions to restore or maintain fish stocks at sustainable levels and meet the requirements of Article 6.3.

To date, Defra has developed and published six FMPs which are available at www.gov.uk/government/collections/fisheries-management-plans#published-fmps which we are now beginning to implement. For example, last year we introduced legislation to better manage fly seine fishing in the English Channel, increased the minimum conservation reference sizes for brill, lemon sole, turbot and crawfish to protect the juveniles of these species.